


Near the Earth, to Touch

by sheafrotherdon



Series: A Farm in Iowa 'Verse [17]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-10
Updated: 2006-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:05:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'May the blessing of light be upon you; light on the outside, light on the inside' ~ traditional seasonal blessing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Near the Earth, to Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as ever, to the tireless, marvelous, fabulous Dogeared for cheerleading and beta duties (both of which were sorely needed).

 

It's late when John leaves Marv and Peggy Dorman's place, their attic newly insulated against a winter that's several warm, daytime breaths of fall away. Night's a different matter – the promise of frost's in the air as John walks back to the truck, his breath ghosting dragon-curls, cold beneath the heavy press of night. He climbs into the truck, coaxes the engine to start on his second try, and pats the dash before he backs down the Dormans' driveway. He'd turn on the heat, but that seems like it'd be asking one too many miracles of the Dodge for one evening, and he's not so far from home he can't stand a little chill in his fingers and his toes.

The drive's a thing of beauty, the moon hanging full and satisfied over newly shorn fields, the road twisting lazily as it tugs him home. John hums to himself – a snatch of Zeppelin, a phrase or two of Cash – and rolls his shoulders against the tight burn in his back, the consequence of the unnatural nooks and crannies of a one-hundred-year-old farmhouse. Gables, he's concluded, are a hell of a lot less charming when seen from the inside out.

He's half-way through the intro of his favorite Creedence Clearwater song when he sees the split-second flash of amber that tells him a deer's in his path. The tinny echo of his grandfather's voice floats up from some dark recess of his mind; advice meant for his father, navigating darkened roads – "Hit 'em straight on, son. You'll do more damage if you try to avoid 'em . . ." But there's no time to process that sort of thought when he's pinned by a rush of light and sound – the squeal of brakes, the thud of impact, the sickening crunch of metal and glass. He's spinning, careening off the road into brush, and there's nothing in front of him save the crumpled metal of the truck's mangled hood. He can't see to steer, has no choice but to brace for impact, and feels the shock of the truck breaking through the fence-line like someone's taken a length of pipe to his spine. One headlight stays intact, pierces the darkness to thread useless light between shattered fence-posts and huddled trees. He blinks, wets his lips, and as he thinks about wincing, held limply in place by a seat-belt that's summoning bruises to darken his skin, manages only a murmur before he passes out.

The sound of his own voice is the first cue that he's awake again – "Mother – fucker," harsh in the night air. He swallows gingerly, fumbles for his seat belt, and whimpers weakly when the pressure across his chest's released. The door swings open easily – some sort of mercy, he thinks as he slides out to stand as best he can – but the engine's hissing and there's no way he can drive out of this particular mess. He stumbles to the roadside – the deer's dead, which is the night's second gift – and while he's sure as hell not going to bend and drag it off the road, he can toe it slowly toward the ditch, moving deliberately while his brain tries to catch up with what's happened.

It takes him a while to remember he has a cell phone in his pocket, product of Rodney's insistence that exactly this sort of thing was bound to happen someday. He flips it open, finds he has a signal, and mumbles something profane and thankful as he hits the speed-dial for home.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Rodney." His voice is surprisingly steady, he reckons.

"Oh god, what did you do? Are you in jail? You're in jail aren't you?"

Or maybe not. "Of course I'm not in jail." He rubs the heel of his hand against his aching forehead – blinks, surprised, when it comes away covered in blood.

"That is _such code_ for 'I'm in jail'," Rodney protests.

"I'm not in jail!" John replies, rummaging in his pockets, voice rising despite the fact that he knows it's going to make his head hurt more.

"Then where are you?"

John squints into the distance. "By the side of the road 'bout halfway between the Brennemans' and Jackson Avenue," he offers.

There's silence on the other end of the phone. "And you're what, calling to tell me you've decided to sell your body on the least populated street in America?" Rodney asks.

"Kinda had an accident."

"Accident?" Rodney's voice ratchets up a degree or two. "What kind of accident?"

"Hit a deer."

"Oh my god."

John nods and pulls a wad of napkins out of one pocket, presses them to his head and hisses at the pressure. "I – "

"What the _hell were you thinking?_ How fast were you driving – you _idiot_ , you _know_ those deer hate us, hate everyone, just _wait_ for people to – "

"Rodney?"

"They're homicidal! Suicide-roadway deer! It's the middle-east of the Midwest!"

"Rodney – "

"What?"

"I'm kinda bleeding here so if you could just – "

" _Bleeding_?"

The line goes dead. "Well shit," John sighs, closing the phone and shuffling back to the listing truck. "Now he's really gonna freak out." He leans against the passenger-side door and tries not to think about anything at all.

He's no idea how long it is before Rodney shows up – his fingers are numb, but he's not sure if that's from standing out in the cold for so long or some sort of shock. Still, as soon as headlights show in the distance he knows it's Rodney, senses it somehow from the tight, reckless way the person's driving. Sure enough the car slows as it gets close, pulls gracefully off the road, and thirty seconds later Rodney catapults out of the car, swearing colorfully and giving John a bad case of déjà vu.

"Hey."

"What did you _hit_ , the cross-bred love-child of a moose and Bambi on steroids?" Rodney asks, hurrying toward him, panic evident in the tight line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders.

John offers a feeble, sheepish smile. "Where's Finn?"

"Mrs. Gunderson's – I decided you could wait five minutes in the interest of him _not_ having nightmares about his almost-decapitated father for the rest of his life."

"I'm not almost decapitated." John grabs hold of Rodney's sleeve with his free hand and holds on tight. It's weirdly comforting.

Rodney reaches up and eases John's other hand away from his forehead, peers at the cut that runs into his hair. "No, no, but you got as close as you could under the circumstances, you asinine, freakish, Top Gun, farm-hand idiot with a hero complex," he whispers, clearly distracted.

"Rodney," John says, and he can hear the unsteadiness in his voice. It's enough to shut Rodney up.

"Get in my car," he orders, brow creased with worry. "We're going to the ER."

"I'm _fine_."

"You are not, and what's more, you are not fighting me on this John Sheppard, so help me – "

"Okay – okay . . . " John figures it's better to do what Rodney says than have him yell again in that . . . yelly voice. (All his better words are sliding away from him.) Acquiescent, he lets Rodney insinuate a hand beneath his elbow, guide him to the car and settle him in the passenger seat; he watches with interest as Rodney strides back to the truck to turn off the engine. "Huh," John manages when Rodney gets in the driver's side of the car and slams the door. "You'd think I'd have – you know . . . done that."

"Yes, well, you have a rather significant head injury, if the blood on your shirt is anything to go by, and that likely means you have a concussion." Rodney eases back out onto the road, and John's never noticed how bumpy the pavement is before. "So all in all I think we can thank our stars you're in one piece and consider everything after that immaterial."

John closes his eyes, nausea swimming bitterly at the back of his throat. "I'm sorry," he whispers, feeling the need to apologize.

Rodney grabs his hand. "Shut up," he says tightly, and doesn't let go until they're safe in the parking lot by the emergency room – and only then, John reckons, because it's that or stay in the car all night, and that'd defeat the purpose.

Once they get inside, everything speeds up and slows down, and John wonders if this is how Rodney always sees the world – clash of atoms and the arc of relativity, molecules at play beneath the fabric of time. There's a jangle of voices that hurts like hell and someone hustles John away from Rodney's urgent invective, into a room that's a little less bright than the lobby, and for that he gives thanks. He doesn't remember moving much, but when next he blinks he's on a gurney and the smell of antiseptic's enough to make him hurl. With a groan he turns his head to throw up – and someone has a silver bowl right there to catch it. He's grateful that there isn't any mess but whispers he's sorry anyway, closing his eyes and sinking back against the thin, serviceable mattress while people flutter around him like the fat, noisy moths that batter the screen-door on summer nights.

He forgets the order in which things happen – there's too much to process – but he tries to lie still and not make too much noise while people clean his cuts and press on his ribs and send him through scanners to look at his brain. Someone stitches up the gash on his forehead and someone else flashes a light in his eyes and there's nothing in the world so welcome as the pressure of Rodney's strong, capable hand, holding him steady once the nurses let him in. John listens while Rodney murmurs what's happening – concussion, bruising, lacerations, not serious, something to help with the pain – then slides into a soft, sweet darkness he swears is the texture of Finn's favorite blanket, warm around him where he'd been so cold.

Wakefulness comes at the beckoning of Rodney's touch, his fingertips gliding through John's hair. The room's gone quiet, still and dark. "Mmmph," John manages, his eyelids heavy. "Y'okay?"

"Am I okay," Rodney huffs, but his hand doesn't still. "You're the one knocked out on pain meds and lying in a hospital bed."

John grunts his disagreement. "Gurney," he manages.

"Yes, now's the time to be particular about your nouns," Rodney sniffs.

John shifts, restless, aching. "M'not staying here, am I?"

"No." Rodney stills him with a touch. "Observation for a little bit longer, then I can take you home."

"Confine me t'bed." John tries for a leer.

"You wish," Rodney scoffs, rubbing the back of John's hand with one thumb. "You're going to feel like hell for a few days."

"S'just bruises."

"Talk to me tomorrow, tell me how you feel about the minor inconvenience of bruises then, hmm?"

John can feel his eyes getting heavy again. "My truck's broken."

There's a soft, gentle pause. "We'll fix it," Rodney whispers, and John thinks about Rodney's hands and his computers and his big old brain and how he can fix stars and the things people get wrong about atoms, and it seems like Rodney's someone who could see about fixing a truck, so he nods and goes back to sleep.

When next he wakes, someone's switched on the lights and there are tiny, tiny drill instructors yelling inside his head, suggesting he do unmentionable things to grout with a toothbrush. He shakes his head and blinks to clear his vision, and as soon as he can focus he realizes he hurts absolutely everywhere. "Jesus," he murmurs, flexing his fingers. His thumbs hurt; his _toes_.

"How're you feeling?" asks a genial looking doctor, standing at the end of his bed (gurney, _thing_ ).

"Like I hit – something. Big," he clarifies. He thinks about the soft-blanket drugs that seem to have worn off. "And I hurt?"

"Yeah, you're gonna feel the burn for a few days," the doctor says cheerfully, scribbling on a prescription pad. "Here," – he passes the scripts to Rodney – "Percocet for now, Darvocet for later, high-dose ibuprofen for the end of the week. A muscle relaxant." He turns his attention back to John. "Keep that gash dry and come back if there's any sign of infection or you run a fever, you hear? Otherwise you're outta here."

Rodney nods and isn't giving the doctor hell which means something is totally fucked up and John's in an alternate universe. He didn't know truck wrecks could do that. "I – "

"Need a hand?" Rodney asks.

"Where's the real Rodney?" John asks weakly, grimacing as he sits up.

"If you have amnesia and think I have implants again, I'm leaving you here for some wandering nurse to pick up and take home to be her love slave."

John blinks drowsily. "Nurses do that?"

"None of the ones I've met," Rodney says wistfully.

John slides into the wheelchair Rodney's offering, and doesn't try and work out what that means. He does spare a thought for the fact that he's a lousy specimen of manhood, being wheeled through a hospital before it's really light out, all because of a cut on his head. But his elbows are sore, and his ribs, and his back, and he reckons even an alternate-universe Rodney will yell at him if he tries to walk, so he dozes instead and waits for Rodney to fetch the car, slides into the passenger seat and clings to the tiny plastic bucket the nurses gave him, in case he wants to throw up again on the drive home.

He doesn't – he comes close, but he knows there's nothing left in his belly and he's not anxious to find the energy to retch up bile. "Truck," he murmurs, blinking stupidly as the first glimmer of sunrise shows in the east

"I called someone. It's been towed."

"It has?" John doesn't remember that. "You did?"

"Filed a police report, called the insurance company."

"Busy."

Rodney huffs a little. "I could hardly leave it out there, could I? Besides, I needed something to do while you were being . . ." He waves one hand as if to encompass John's various medical calamities.

John nods as they drive over the bridge close to home, the Cedar River red-gold beneath them, a wash of new sunlight riding the current south. "Finn – "

"I called Laura. She'll pick him up and I'll fetch him later, soon as you're settled."

"You should sleep."

"Yes, well, I think you probably have first claim on that." Rodney eases down the lane and drives to park in the yard, as close to the farmhouse as he can manage. "Come on. Can't wait to see what your addled brain decides to do with the concept of stairs."

It takes a while to make it to the bedroom, and John's exhausted by the time he sits on the edge of the bed. "Leave it," he mumbles as Rodney begins unfastening his shirt.

"I want you out of this," Rodney says, mouth a thin line of determination as he bats John's hands away.

"Insati'ble," John murmurs.

Rodney shakes his head, looking grim. "I'd prefer not to look at this shirt one moment more than I have to, is all." When he finally eases it away from John's shoulders and John can see the blood that's spilled down the front, he thinks he might understand a little better, and doesn't complain when Rodney slides off his boots and socks, pulls back the comforter and settles him against the sheets. Deft fingers pull at his jeans and he's comfortable at last, rubbed-raw skin pressed against cool cotton sheets.

"Tired," he mumbles, lifting his head enough to take the pill Rodney offers, chasing it with water.

"Yes, well, that'll happen," Rodney murmurs briskly, whipping the comforter back over him and tucking it in place. He sits beside him at the edge of the bed and watches him closely. "Sleep now."

John fumbles for Rodney's hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm all good," he slurs, drifting already. He's asleep before he can hear Rodney's reply.

Disorientation presses close when he wakes again, the last few hours nothing but the swim in and out of consciousness, interrupting any sense he might have of what day it is, where he might be. He blinks, noticing the light's too rich in the room for it to be the hour he normally wakes, and there's no smell of coffee or echo of Finn's voice to announce it's morning. He blinks and winces, a dull ache grinding through his bones – then notices the weight he feels isn't merely imaginary; Rodney's asleep with his head on John's belly, coat still on as if he simply got too tired to sit up anymore. His feet are still on the floor.

"Y'back'll hate you later," John whispers, but Rodney doesn't stir, so John contents himself with staring for a while, and only realizes he's fallen asleep again when he hears Mrs. Gunderson chiding Rodney gently, and opens his eyes to blink at her, confused.

"Well and there you are," she says, eyeing him as if she can judge the state of his bones, the burn in his muscles with an evaluative glance. "How're you feeling?"

John wets his lips. "Thirsty."

"Well we'll get right on that as soon as genius here consents to go get some _real_ sleep in the spare room."

John glances at Rodney who's sitting at the foot of the bed, arms folded, glowering sullenly.

"Don't you start," Rodney snaps preemptively. "Bad enough that we have nosy neighbor number one, here, breaking and entering – "

Ada snorts softly. "With that key you gave me," she points out.

" – disturbing me when I was having a very comfortable dream about – " He swallows and shuts up.

John smiles lazily – it feels as if it takes a long time for the thought to transfer into action. "You were dreaming about the Nobel prize again, weren't you?"

"So what if I was?" Rodney asks defensively, spine straightening for a second before he winces and slouches again.

Ada throws John a sympathetic look. "You try."

"Rodney – "

"I am _fine_."

"Sleep, buddy. Please."

Rodney looks over, a crumpled picture of exhaustion and misery. "You have our bed," he says, voice just a notch away from a whine.

"Take the spare room, just for a bit."

"I don't – like. That." Rodney's scowl deepens.

"Couple hours, that's all."

Ada lays a gentle hand on Rodney's shoulder. "C'mon. I'll make sure nothing happens to him while you're catching a snooze."

Rodney mumbles something petulant, but concedes to stand and let Ada shepherd him to the spare bedroom. John drifts for a while until Ada comes back out, poking her head in to give him an update. "Fell asleep before his head properly hit the pillow," she smiles.

"Thank you."

"Ah, think nothing of it. What's the point of being a nosy neighbor if not to come help out when one of you's damn fool enough to take out a chunk of Patrick Hennessey's fence?"

"Y'not a nosy neighbor."

"You take that back," she says in mock offense. "I've a reputation to uphold." She waves a hand, dismissing him. "I'll go get you that water, and then you can damn well sleep too. I've cleaning to do and wash to start and I'd better cook up something for you people to eat because god knows he's going to be useless until you're up and about."

John flushes. "We haven't been to the store for a bit."

"And you think I'd come over without that in mind? You're a house of men, I come with low expectations. Now shut up."

John smiles. "Yes ma'am."

"Mmm, silence on command. A perk to being godawful ancient at last," she grins and heads downstairs.

It's late afternoon before Rodney rouses, fusses snippily over John, and leaves to fetch Finn. By the time he comes back, John's propped up on a mound of pillows, eating chicken noodle soup made from scratch by Mrs. Gunderson, and reflecting that it's probably the best thing he's eaten in his whole life. He tells Ada as much, and she huffs a breath of laughter, points out that with his belly empty for nigh on twenty-four hours, she could probably feed him shoe leather and it'd taste like a dream. Still, he chews on carrots and celery and chicken and feels generally at peace with the world. There's a chance his glowy contentment has a little to do with the Percocet, but he'll think about that once the prescription runs out.

Rodney brings Finn upstairs, but Finn refuses to go into the bedroom – hovers instead at the doorway. He watches John suspiciously, sucking on one finger, holding tight to Rodney with his other hand.

"Hey, buddy," John offers.

Finn frowns.

John sets down his soup. "Wanna come say hi?" He pats the covers draped over his lap.

Finn looks up at Rodney, who nods toward the bed. Chewing on his lip, Finn takes a couple of steps forward, then one more, then runs the rest of the way and clambers up, still looking far more worried than any kid ought. "Hi Baffa."

John offers a crooked smile. "Hey, puddlejumper."

Finn crawls to sit on his lap, knees folded on either side of John's legs. "You throw up?"

"Some." John touches his cheek lightly. "But I'm doing better now."

"Wha' happened?"

"I got in an accident, in the truck."

"What's acc-i-dent?"

"It's where something happens that you didn't do on purpose."

Finn chews his lip, thinking. "Like when I hit Daddy in his pee-pee?"

John and Rodney wince in unison at the memory. "Yeah, buddy," John says, marshalling his features. "You didn't mean to do that, right?"

"No."

"So that was an accident."

"So you didn't means to get hurt?"

"Course not," John says softly. "Accident."

Finn looks down at his own hands, plays with one fingernail. "I felt bad at Laura's 'cause you were gone."

"I'm sorry, buddy. I had to see the doctor, get some band-aids." John tries to catch his eye. "You had a good time with Mrs. Gunderson, though, right? And Laura?"

"Laura has a puppy."

"Yeah." John smiles at him. "See? Puppies are good."

Finn finally looks him straight in the face, and John tries not to squirm as his son looks him over, catalogs the bruising and the gash on his forehead. Studious, Finn tilts his head. "Did an'body kiss it better?"

John glances at Rodney with a small smile. "I think Daddy did."

"You need more kisses better?"

"Always, puddlejumper."

Finn kneels up and kisses the end of John's nose. "There. S'better?"

"Much," John smiles, and hugs him gently so as not to press down on his ribs. "You wanna sit in bed with me for a bit?"

"Yes," Finn says, and his voice is tremulous.

"We could read a book?"

"Book."

Rodney brings in a stack from Finn's room, and sits on Finn's other side, holding the books while Finn chooses which John should read. They make it through _The Little Engine That Could_ before John starts to yawn, and Rodney picks up _Goodnight Moon_ and takes up the slack. John only realizes how far he's drifted when he hears the whispered conversation beside him.

"Daddy, is Baffa all right?"

The bed shifts a little as Rodney moves, likely to tuck Finn against his side. "He's just tired, buddy."

There's a pause. "Does he need more kisses better?"

"I think that might wake him up. But you know? He likes it when people stroke his hair."

"Can I stroke his hair?"

"Sure. Be gentle."

The bed shifts again, and John feels a tiny hand pet his head. "I's gentle, see?"

"Yeah," Rodney murmurs, and John falls asleep, heart pinching just a little.

*****

John gets out of bed the next day, and it's not just the screaming protest of every joint in his body that makes him feel like the whole world's been hit by a truck. Rodney's a little cold, a little distant, and Finn decides it's the perfect time to prove Rodney wrong on the matter of 'my son's a genius who can skip whatever developmental milestones he likes.' The day's barely half an hour old when Finn throws a half-empty box of Cheerios across the kitchen, kicks a cupboard, and throws himself on the floor, screaming and crying as if the universe is coming to a crashing end. John blinks and looks across the kitchen at Rodney, who blinks and looks right back.

"Uh."

Rodney frowns and sticks his hands in his pockets. "Wow."

"Yeah."

They both stare at Finn again as he pounds the floorboards with his fists.

"Do you – I mean . . . what are we supposed to _do_ exactly when he does this?"

John winces. "I don't know, but anything that stops him making that noise is good with me."

Finn helpfully ratchets up the volume of his yelling.

"I'm pretty sure we don't – " Rodney gestures, twirling a finger. "Reason with him."

John throws him a look of 'you think?' and moves a chair out of the way of Finn's flailing limbs. "Do we ignore it?"

"Oh. Ignoring. Huh." Rodney screws up his face and scratches his chin. "Maybe? It would deprive him of the attention he's . . . okay, seriously, is he okay? Is he _supposed_ to be able to do that for this long?"

"How would I know?"

"You've – " Rodney jerks a hand. "Been around children!"

"Right. We had them bring us the ammo when we dug in."

"Well I don't know!"

Finn's howls become quieter, and he lifts a teary face. "Want peeeeee-beeeeeeee . . ." he sniffs, bottom lip trembling.

John blinks.

Rodney gapes. "Peanut butter?"

"Yeeeees," Finn cries, hiccoughing.

"Well – well we . . . we have peanut butter," Rodney offers, crossing the kitchen to crouch down beside Finn. "You can have peanut butter."

"Okay."

"Okay." Rodney almost falls over when Finn launches himself into his arms, but recovers and stands, Finn clinging like a limpet. "Can you – " He jerks his chin at John.

"Yeah, course." John crosses to the pantry and pulls out a loaf of bread and a jar of Jif. "See, buddy?"

"Pee-bee?"

"Yeah." Rodney sits down in a chair with Finn in his lap, wipes his son's tear-stained face. "You okay?"

Finn nods. "Don' like Cheerios."

John opens his mouth to protest that's a big, stinking lie, but shuts it when he catches Rodney's glare. "Okay," he offers instead, and starts making toast.

"Don' like Cheerios, Daddy."

Rodney pets Finn's back as his son burrows against him. "PB and toast coming up, puddlejumper."

John feels a sick little twist in his stomach, wondering if this is all his fault, somehow – his and a goddamn deer with a death wish – and spreads the PB extra thick in case that can make up for things at all.

Finn clings to Rodney the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, leaving John to feel restless and guilty and more than a little nauseous from the drugs he's taking. He gingerly sits in one of the armchairs after lunch, listening while Rodney coaxes Finn to nap upstairs, and thinks about all the bones he didn't break. It's a fairly morose way to pass the time, but there's a perverse streak of optimism in noting all the way's he's not busted up, especially when his head's still sore and his back hates him with a special passion made of a hundred red hot needles embedded into his spine.

"Well I hope you're happy," Rodney snaps, jolting John out of his reverie.

"What?" If there was a logical beginning to this conversation, John's missed it.

"He's miserable and scared. You got hurt and he's terrified."

John blinks. "Finn?"

"No – Santa Claus. Who, by the way, is renting out our attic space because the price of real estate at the North Pole is seriously limiting his operation, and he needs somewhere to make _wooden trains_. _Yes_ , Finn."

John grinds his teeth. "I said I'm sorry – Jesus, Rodney, it's not like I did it on purpose!"

"You didn't call 911!"

John squints up at him. "I – what?"

"You. Didn't. Call. 911," Rodney repeats, over-enunciating every word, as though John's been dosed up with stupid, not Percocet. "You were _bleeding_ from a _head wound_ and you didn't call 911!"

"It's not so bad – "

"Yes! It's bad! Any head wound is bad! And you were bleeding all over – yourself and the gravel and the _truck_ and you _didn't call 911!_ Were you trying to widow me? Was that your plan? Hit a deer and let me collect on the insurance? Do you have some dark secret you're trying to escape? Are you depressed? Is this your sick and twisted George Bailey moment?"

John gapes, barely able to keep up. "I – you're . . . "

"Why? _Why_ would you do that?"

Like another smack to the head, John gets it – suddenly recognizes the slow burning anger that waits on the other side of an adrenaline spike; the fury that washes into the places carved out by fear. He remembers the bitter, metallic taste of that sort of helplessness, and he was in a war zone – injury and risk were part and parcel of everything he'd signed up to do. "God, Rodney, I – "

Rodney stares at him, arms folded, face flushed pink.

John clears his throat, tells the truth. "I just – I just wanted to call _you_."

Rodney frowns, looks away, and looks back, mouth an unhappy line. "You – always . . . " He catches whatever words he was going to say and crosses to fold John into a bear hug instead, squeezing him in all kinds of ways that hurt like the blazes.

"Rodney."

"Shut up."

"S'kinda – hurts . . . "

"Shit." Rodney pulls back, hands on John's shoulders, searching his face. "Where? Did you take your pills? Those muscle relaxants or the Percocet, which did you – "

"I'm fine, I just – "

"You shouldn't be in that chair – maybe you should lie down, maybe you should be napping as well as Finn."

John catches Rodney's face between his hands. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I just thought you'd make it right."

Rodney sighs, lips twisting. "I'm – sorry, too. Just – " He gestures. "I worry."

"I'm not depressed."

"Well good, because I'd like to know what the hell you'd be depressed about since you have me and Finn and Burp and there's the woman at the 7-11 in town, don't think I haven't seen how she looks at you, she'd be murderous if she found out you'd come to a sticky end by fence post, absolutely murderous, and I'm sort of addicted to those slushies by now so if you could – "

"I'm not having a George Bailey moment."

" – just not die, ever, pretty much ever, I think that would be best. Your not dying."

John leans up despite several sets of protesting muscles and kisses Rodney hard. "Okay."

"Okay. Good. That's good." Rodney swallows.

John crooks one corner of his mouth into something like a smile. "How 'bout that nap you mentioned? You too."

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"I – well. I mean, if you need help getting upstairs I could – "

"Yeah, Rodney, that's it. I need help walking." He smacks him across the back of the head for show. "Come lie down with me."

"I'm not touching you in any way that's remotely untoward or sexual, perverse, kinky or perhaps even suggestive on a rudimentary level until those stitches are out."

John shakes his head, huffs a breath of almost-laughter. "I just wanna _sleep_."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh. Although it's nice you think my libido and stamina could triumph over chronic back pain right now. Cheering."

"Idiot." Rodney helps him out of the chair. "For that you're going upstairs first. I'm depriving you of the opportunity to ogle my ass."

"Ogle." John quirks an eyebrow as he heads for the stairs.

"You're a ogler. For years now. It's all anyone can say about you."

John grins. "Mmm. That's the sort of reputation I can handle."

"Also, you smell."

"Happy third grade to you too, Rodney."

"Oh shut up."

John does, but as he climbs the stairs, has the distinct impression that someone's ogling him from behind.

*****

Having discovered the wonderfully flexible boundaries of self-expression, Finn holds firm and fast to the liberating experience of the tantrum. Rodney's the first to weather a public version of the kitchen meltdown – comes back from the public library looking slightly shell-shocked, and asks, with a frightening level of sincerity, how many Percocet John has left. They're both there when Finn works up a head of steam over oatmeal in the grocery store, and find themselves studiously examining the nutritional information on boxes of Special K while Finn lies prostrate at their feet, screaming blue murder and rolling all over the floor – which, predictably, is covered in mud and grime tracked in from a rainstorm. When Finn melts down in Target, John tries to grab him, to tuck his rigid, unyielding frame under his arm – but Finn manages to connect a fist and a foot to a lingering wash of bruises, and John's eyes water so hard he almost drops the kid, earning a barrage of incoherent panic from Rodney. Nothing is sacred – not even the magic hour before bed that's been their respite, Finn soft-cheeked and affectionate as he nuzzles in for stories and hugs. Now he lies in front of the television, wailing for Big Bird, and even though he knows he's being manipulated, John can barely stand what his kid's tear-stained face does to his heart.

"I never thought I'd say this," Rodney sighs beside him, as they watch Finn sob himself into a pliable, exhausted state. "But I miss the days when all he'd do was flick snot at me."

"Ask why it was bad to touch his poop."

"Try to eat his own hair."

"Want to drink out of the toilet."

Rodney sighs again. "I think this may be revenge for how I acted in grad school."

John blinks. "Because you'd roll around on the floor asking for more Sesame Street?"

Rodney rewards him with a scathing look "Because I was – perhaps, sometimes, occasionally, once in a while, rarely – " He lifts his chin. "Unreasonable."

John's about to comment that this surely means the apocalypse is at hand, Rodney admitting to a personal failing, but Finn lifts his head from the carpet, bottom lip trembling, a picture of abject misery. "Baffffaaaa," he manages, and John caves, goes to scoop him up despite the ache in his back, and nods for Rodney to lead the way upstairs to flannel sheets and a room painted with stars, haven for a tired and cranky little boy.

(And as they smooth down the comforter and leave the door ajar, John grazes a kiss behind Rodney's ear and wonders if the farm isn't Rodney's twin bed and well-loved, stuffed elephant after a desperate, lonely tantrum that's lasted almost forty years.)

*****

The accident slowly recedes, giving up its intrusive spot at the kitchen table. John comes off the painkillers, the bruises fade, and while Finn still throws all the tantrums he can, few are directly concerned with punishing John for being fool enough to drive into a fence. Rodney brings the truck back from the shop, hood replaced, paintwork fixed, headlights brand new, and John croons reverently as he inspects the work, earning an indulgent, scoffing hmmph from Rodney (whom John nevertheless suspects is the reason there's an airplane-shaped air-freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror).

But if the accident's begrudgingly moved out of the kitchen and living room, it's digging in its heels in the bedroom, and despite the respite of long showers and a soaped hand, John's getting desperate. Rodney has enough trust in him to start working late at the labs again, but not enough to convince him to lay more than a comforting hand on John's body. It's getting embarrassing – John finds himself getting half-hard and aching every time Rodney snaps, just from watching the play of his mouth when he's in the middle of a rant, but Rodney won't give in – slows down all their kisses, rubs the back of John's neck until he's boneless and drowsy, falling asleep when what he really wants to do is fuck. He tries every subtle, nuanced move he knows until, reaching the end of his tether, he finally gives up one night and strips down, stands in the middle of the bedroom and waits for Rodney to get done taking a leak.

"I – oh!" Rodney says when he comes out of the bathroom.

John arches an eyebrow. "Take a good look," he offers, aware he sounds slightly maniacal. "You see any more bruises?"

"Actually, yes, you've – on your shoulder, yellow and green now and faded, but – "

John takes a step closer. "Rodney, I swear to god . . . "

"This is harassment!"

"We're all but fucking married, you idiot," John hisses, narrowly squashing the urge to clip Rodney round the ear. "Me standing in the middle of our bedroom is harassment _how_ , exactly?"

"I – I'm not sure this is a good idea . . . "

John looks down at Rodney's pants. "You should talk to your cock, 'cause it disagrees."

Rodney presses his lips together and tucks his hands under his armpits. "I might hurt you. I – I don't want that."

John steps right into Rodney's personal space, and if he weren't already turned on within an inch of his life, being close enough to Rodney to feel his body heat while he's buck-naked and Rodney's fully clothed would be the final nail in that coffin. "I once fell out of the sky in a helicopter that was on _fire_ – I don't reckon you're gonna break me if you grab my ass," he says, very low.

"Oh – " Rodney's all but wringing his hands, and that's about the last thing John can take.

"Fuck," he growls, and grabs Rodney by the biceps, kissing him hard and ruthless. When he pulls back, Rodney's lips are swollen, and his pupils are blown wide. "I want your hands on me," John growls.

"Oh – I . . . are you – I'm still . . ."

John gracelessly manhandles him over to the bed, crawls over him and pins his hands to the pillows. "You're making me insane," he whispers hoarsely, before latching on to the soft skin of Rodney's throat and sucking it between his teeth.

Rodney's hips buck shamelessly. "Oh god."

"Get this t-shirt off."

"What if you – "

" _Rodney_."

"I just – what if you – "

John lowers his head and bites hard at one of Rodney's nipples through his t-shirt.

"Fuck!" Rodney gasps, fingers curling and uncurling, wrists still in John's hands. "T-shirt – yes, t-shirt off, off . . . "

John bites at Rodney's nipple again before he lets his hands go, before he slides broad palms over Rodney's chest in the wake of the washed-soft fabric. He licks where he'd bitten, heedless of Rodney's flailing, awkward attempts to tug the t-shirt over his head, too focused on sucking one nipple, then the other, dragging all sorts of obscene noises from Rodney's throat. "Touch me," he growls, looking up to take in Rodney's startled, hellishly turned-on expression.

"Wh-where?" Rodney asks.

"Any-fucking-where you want," John gasps, dragging himself up to kiss Rodney again, grinding down against him, the rough fabric of Rodney's pants harsh against his cock. Rodney kisses back – hot, sloppy, wet drag of lips – hands sliding down John's back, palming his ass, pressing him down as Rodney arches up. John can't hold back the plaintive, needy noise that he makes, and he pulls away, scatters stinging nips and open-mouthed kisses over Rodney's chest, fingers scrabbling at Rodney's fly while Rodney babbles incoherent encouragement above his head.

John groans when he licks the head of Rodney's cock, mouth watering at the musk-warm weight of him against his tongue. There isn't a chance he can go slow – he rounds his mouth, taking in as much of Rodney as he can, tongue firm against the underside of his erection as his hand skates over Rodney's balls, pressing behind. Rodney's hips jerk, and John pulls back just enough to give him room, but lets Rodney fuck his mouth with erratic little bursts, breathes heavily through his nose as Rodney winds shaking fingers through his hair and mumbles that he's close, so close, oh god, it's just been so long, embarrassing . . .

When he comes it's in long, slow pulses that John swallows greedily. He hasn't the breath to make noise, but the impulse is there, flaring hot inside his chest as he sucks Rodney off, gentles the movement of his tongue as Rodney shivers and his hands fall away. He pulls back slowly, lets him slip from his mouth with a slick, satisfying pop, and nuzzles the inside of Rodney's thigh, dragging stubble over the sensitive skin and smirking happily when Rodney whines.

"Jesus, you broke _me_ ," Rodney pants, lax and helpless against the bed covers.

John drags himself up over Rodney's body and kisses him without even a semblance of patience. "So return the favor," he murmurs, and it's Rodney's turn to growl with exasperation as he shoves at John's shoulders and pushes him onto his back, expression heated.

"So you like my hands, huh?" Rodney asks forcefully, and he's into it now, eyes flashing as he licks his palm.

"Nice you got with the program," John says caustically, as though the sight of Rodney's tongue wetting his fingers isn't near-as-dammit making his eyes roll back in his head.

"Yeah? Why? 'Cause they're big?" Rodney asks, leaning to bite at John's collarbone.

"Yeah," John manages, breathing hard. Rodney's fingertips are grazing his stomach and god, he wants to be touched so badly he's practically ready to come from the _idea_. "Fingers."

"What about 'em?"

John groans as Rodney thumbs the head of his cock then pulls his hand away. " _Strong_ ," he manages, and grits his teeth as Rodney rewards him by wrapping a hand around his erection and tugging hard.

Rodney leans in, nips below John's ear then breathes harshly over the same spot. "You want it rough?"

"God – yes . . . "

"Quick, dirty?"

" _Rodney_ . . ."

"You wanna come all over my hand?"

" _Jesus_ . . . " But Rodney's stealing his words now, kissing him while his hand jacks him sweet and swift, and his orgasm's pooling low in his belly, skittering across the backs of his thighs and he's coming, hips bucking up from the bed as he spills all over Rodney's fingers and tips his head back, barely able to breathe.

He barely notices as Rodney wipes his fingers on his belly, but he sure as hell pays attention when Rodney sucks on his thumb, licking the rest of John's come from his hand. John swallows hard, hooks a hand around the back of Rodney's neck, and pulls him down into a scorching, searing kiss that's as sharp and bright as when they began.

"Still in once piece," John points out when they pull apart, chests heaving.

"Yeah," Rodney says, shifting to kick off his pants, his boxers, to sprawl over John. "But you're gonna kill me someday."

John cups the back of Rodney's head with one hand, fingers sliding through his hair. "Cool," he offers, and laughs, breathless, as Rodney punches him in the arm.

*****

It's Rodney's idea that Finn have a skating party for his third birthday – an idea he throws out the afternoon John's lying on his back under the sink, trying to pull a Hot Wheels car out of the waste disposal unit. Since his biggest concern at the time's trying not to get a face full of soggy, half-chewed Cheerios and green slime that's either ectoplasm or primordial ooze, John makes a range of agreeable noises, reckoning there'll eventually be time to discuss the wisdom of sending a party of kids out on ice with enormous blades attached to their feet. He realizes, as he sits on a bench at the rink in the mall a week later, lacing up a pair of hockey skates and cursing under his breath, he was insane, and should be shot for underestimating the combined capacity of Cadman and McKay when they put their heads together over _anything_. He stands up and sighs, ruing the fact that he didn't learn his lesson after the wedding. Laura, Rodney, and event-planning are a bad mix – as soon as the hair-pulling's done, someone's gonna find a way to make sure John ends up flailing his limbs to a bad eighties soundtrack. He cocks his head as 'Jessie's Girl' starts pumping through the speakers, and smacks himself in the forehead as a reminder to never be so stupid again.

"Come on!" Rodney yells, gliding past. He's skating _backwards_ , the asshole, pulling Finn along by both hands.

John grimaces. "I'm coming," he shouts back, walking over to the rink's entrance.

Rodney frowns, deftly making a circle to skate back around to him again. "What?"

"What, what?" John snaps.

"You! You look like someone's about to disembowel you!"

John grits his teeth and steps onto the ice, one hand clutching the Plexiglas surround. "I'm no – " he censors the word 'fucking' out of his diatribe " – good at skating."

Rodney comes to a graceful halt, one skate sending up a shower of ice. "What?"

"I'm shit at skating!" John snaps, then flushes guiltily. "Sorry buddy," he says to Finn.

"Swears!" Finn says jubilantly. "Money inna Finn jar!"

John sighs. "Yeah. Dollar when we get home, promise."

"What do you _mean_ you're no good at skating?" Rodney asks, peering at him as though he's grown wings.

"I mean I'm no _good_ ," John grits out. "I – fall down a lot."

Rodney stares. "You – you have a skateboard."

"Yeah."

"You ride a bike I'm quite convinced would summarily dump me into a ditch the very first time I tried to turn a corner!"

John nods. "That too."

"And you can't _skate_?"

"Nope."

"You didn't say anything!"

John thinks about shuffling his feet, but he's pretty sure that way lies the first of many new bruises on his ass. "It's Finn's birthday. He can have whatever he wants."

Rodney sighs and looks down at Finn, who grins back. "You think you can skate on your own a bit?" he asks him.

Finn nods.

"Don't worry if you fall down, and yell for us or Laura or Brad if you need help, okay?"

"I'll b'good, Daddy!" Finn says, and totters off slightly unsteadily, but his balance is essentially good. John rolls his eyes – it figures that his son can skate about two minutes after puzzling out how to walk, and here he is, middle-aged and clinging to the rail like a barnacle on a boat.

"Come on," Rodney says, offering a hand.

"Aw, Rodney, c'mon, I could just . . ." John gestures over his shoulder, back toward the place where people are still wearing shoes.

Rodney tilts his chin and stares him down.

"Goddamit," John says, embarrassed, and reaches out for Rodney's hand, lets him pull him further out onto the ice, knock-kneed and a little more terrified than anyone who's seen combat ought to be.

"Just relax," Rodney offers gruffly. "You're stiff as a board."

"Yeah, 'cause I'm anticipating the moment my ass hits the deck," John hisses back.

Rodney orients them down the middle of the rink, where there's lots of open ice. "Look, it's easy, seriously, just – " he steadies John " – watch." He pushes off and glides with a long, effortless stroke. "See? Just like that, one foot after the other." He skates back and catches John's hand again. John holds on so tight his knuckles turn white.

"Push off." He swallows and does what he thinks Rodney did, and almost immediately he can feel his feet slipping out from under him in very bad ways, and he grabs for Rodney with both hands, almost pulling them both down on the ice.

"Whoa, whoa . . . _excuse me_ Fumbles McFlailer, but I'm – John would you . . . Jesus!" Rodney pries John's fingers from his jacket, exchanging a fistful of fabric for his hand as he moves around to stand in front of him. "Okay, okay, I'm not going to let you fall, okay?"

John glowers at him.

"Yes, very attractive look, I'm so impressed, just – trust me, you great idiot."

John scowls. "Fine."

"Fine." Rodney starts to skate backward, pulling John with him. "Do what I did. Push off with – see . . . ?"

John looks at his feet, tongue poking out from between his teeth as he concentrates. "Stupid fucking pastime."

"Yes, because flinging yourself into the stratosphere and mangling your innards with G-forces is so prudent," Rodney replies.

"I have never _once_ bruised my ass from flying," John shoots back.

"And I'm quite sure that's not because you didn't try," Rodney offers.

"Shut up."

"Seriously, it's not your fault. You were born in a country where men prove their masculinity by throwing small leather balls at each other and trying to hit them with sticks."

"Rodneeeey . . ."

"No, no, I can't help being a product of a vastly more civilized nation, which teaches its young to navigate ice at an early age. Survival mechanism, I suppose, considering the constant ice storms and frozen tundra of Canada."

"Yeah. I hear downtown Toronto's a real bitch in July."

"And so while I accrued vital life skills, you honed your ability to run after balls and sweat profusely in the middle of summer while wearing leather gloves." Rodney smiles, insufferably smug. "I think we can agree that's served you well."

"Yeah? Well – " John searches for an appropriate insult. "Least no one wears _sequins_ when they're playing baseball."

"Because that is the latest trend in hockey uniforms, you're quite right – that and feathers affixed to helmets. I hear the Sens are doing away with padding altogether and opting for some lovely lycra suits – possibly a masquerade ball look with masks and Japanese fans in case they get overheated mid-game."

John snorts. "I hate you."

"Hmm," Rodney shrugs, letting go of one of John's hands and shifting to skate beside him. "Let's face it, you're just over protective of your ass, you hyper-vigilant bottom."

John looks up, gaping. "Hey!"

Rodney blinks. "Hmm?"

"I am just done with bruising for this year, alright? Stupid fucking – truck business and now this? I don't need my ass fourteen shades of purple any time soon!"

Rodney drops John's other hand and scratches at his jaw. "I promise to love your ass no matter how many colors it turns."

John flushes. "We're in a public place!"

"And if anyone can hear a word we're saying over the pounding bass line of 'Pour Some Sugar On Me,' I want to meet that person and personally conduct medical experiments on their inner ear."

John folds his hands under his arms and scowls. "You're a piece of work, McKay," he drawls.

"And you're skating," Rodney grins, pushing off to turn around in front of him. "Look, no hands," he says, wiggling his fingers.

John's jaw works uselessly as he keeps moving, pushing off one step after the next. "Well shit," he manages at last, looking at his feet, and promptly falls ass over elbow and smashes into the wall.

Finn glides past, pumping the air as he skates. "I'M THREE!" he yells.

John eyes him balefully, accepts Rodney's help getting up, and wonders where he hands in his resignation from being cool.

*****

It's John's re-tenderized ass that seals the deal: right after Finn's birthday they make plans to fly to the Millers' for Christmas, rather than drive. While Rodney's long been unhappy about the idea of navigating several hundred miles of potentially deer-lined highways between the farm and Toronto, it's John's aversion to sitting still for eleven hours that cements the decision. They've left it too late to get really good seats, but Rodney calls the airlines and makes threats that involve nefarious uses for government equipment, which finagles them a set of three seats together on each leg of their trip.

Packing is a disaster. Finn piles toys and books on his bed, but refuses to pick out clothes; Rodney has trouble deciding how many laptops it's absolutely necessary for him to take as carry-on baggage; and John finds himself incapable of packing outfits that aren't black.

"Are you joining the Canadian special ops forces for an old-time jamboree once we're up north?" Rodney asks, eyeing the identical shirts John's laid out with military precision.

"Maybe," John says sullenly, and throws a pair of bright red boxers on the bed, just to break up the black.

"Nice," Rodney says, smiling pleasantly. "Big improvement. Now you're borrowing fashion tips from hookers."

"McKay – "

It's some sort of holiday miracle that they make it through the scuffle that ensues, pack their bags, convince Finn that not only are clothes necessary, so is underwear, drop Burp off at Laura's, and grab a couple of hours of sleep before they drive to the airport. As soon as they arrive, Finn starts introducing himself to everyone with the news that "I'm THREE!" It's even worse when the helpful lady in the cafeteria finds it charming, and keeps asking him to repeat it.

"THREE!"

She chuckles indulgently. "Can't be!"

"THREE!" Finn grins

"Are you _sure_!?"

"THREE!"

She glances down the line and smiles. "Just one more time for these nice ladies and gentlemen."

"THREE!"

Rodney grabs a plastic knife from the counter, commits fake seppuku, and leaves John to pay, collect the coffee, and wrangle Finn away from his new best friend. John settles on the tactic of pretending Finn's a soccer ball, herding him with his knees, and successfully manages to manhandle the tray with their drinks over everyone else's heads. "Thanks for your help there, buddy," he says to Rodney.

"THREE!" yells Finn.

"It's not even my favorite prime," Rodney says sadly, as though actively mourning 5573 (and John's not even going to think about the fact that he knows Rodney's favorite prime, because that's round about the point at which he'd have to admit he's neck-deep in a relationship that's way beyond special and out into some realm of quirk that could probably kill small animals and disrupt tidal forces if ever converted into an energy weapon. Not that he thinks about energy weapons either).

John unloads a juice box, some toast, a banana, a muffin, a cheese danish, several packets of peanut butter, and two enormous cups of coffee. "Tragic."

"Absolutely," Rodney sighs, pulling Finn's chair closer to the table. "How many pieces of toast do you want, puddlejumper?"

"THREE!" Finn says, and John starts looking for seppuku implements of his own.

Security turns out to be their next ordeal – Rodney's phone threats earning him a place on the 'flagged' roster as well as the prize of contiguous seats. John waits patiently on the other side of the screening area, trying to persuade Finn to save his puzzles for the plane, and keeps one eye on Rodney, who's pulling off his jacket, belt, watch, shoes, and fudge-colored socks, and firing up both laptops so that it's clear they're not bombs. By the time he makes it out the other side, his hair's sticking up at odd angles, his shirt's done up all wrong, and he's so far into a towering case of righteous anger that he can't even speak. Since they're already calling their flight, it's probably a good thing – he doesn't seem built, John thinks, for running and venting at the same time.

Having a kid earns them the bonus of getting on board before most other passengers, giving Rodney all the time he needs to fuss over the proper placement of everyone's overhead luggage and to stare out the window at the wings, probably looking for possible loose rivets and cracks that the maintenance crew might have missed. By the time the rest of the passengers have boarded, he's shifted straight into nervous twitching, and John watches, amused, as Finn throws Rodney a tiny version of his own imperious glare.

"Daddy?"

"Hmmm?" Rodney glances out the window, rubbing the fingers of his right hand together.

"You's fid- fid – " He looks up at John. "Wassa word?"

"Fidgeting?" John supplies.

"Fij-ting," Finn repeats with confidence.

"Am I?" Rodney swallows and offers a weak smile. "Sorry – I uh . . . I like planes better when your Baffa flies them."

John hides a smile behind a magazine.

"I could sing you a song?" Finn offers. "I know song 'bout Canada."

"You do?" Rodney asks, then shuts his eyes and shakes his head, laughing weakly. "Yes, yes, of course you do, we practiced before we saw Aunt Jeannie this summer, didn't we. Well, sure – you could – you could sing that."

Finn clears his throat, takes a deep breath, and launches in. "I---mma lumb'jack an' I'm okay, I's sleep all night and I's work all day . . ."

Rodney freezes. John narrowly avoids choking.

"I's cut down trees, I eats my lunch, I go to lav'o-treeeeee . . ."

John really never expected to die from repressed laughter, but it looks like it's how he's going to go.

"On Wessnays I go shopping, an' have butter scon's for teeea."

Rodney makes a small, pained, sound.

"I cut down trees, I's skip an' jump, I likes to pess wil' flaaars; I put on wimmin's cloth-ing, and hangaroun' in baaaaaars, OH imma lum . . ."

"Yes, yes, um, you could – that's . . ." Rodney hushes Finn by producing chocolate from his pocket and thrusting it straight into his mouth, wrapper and all. Luckily, Finn thinks this is hilarious.

"Silly Daddy."

"Yes, yes, silly Daddy," Rodney repeats, leveling a murderous look at John over Finn's head.

"What?" John asks, carefully guileless.

"Where, exactly, did he learn that song?'

John hitches a shoulder. "Could've been lots of places."

"Could've. But wasn't."

"Monty Python, Rodney. It's never too soon for Monty Python."

Rodney gestures apoplectically. "Our son is singing about cross-dressing lumberjacks on a plane potentially full of _Canadians_."

"You'd think they'd sing along then, really," John offers.

Rodney squeaks and slumps down in his seat, muttering helplessly.

The flight's uneventful, but O'Hare's a zoo. John hoists Finn onto his back for the walk to the next flight, and pretends not to hear Rodney muttering about wishing _he_ were small enough to just be carried from one terminal to the other. It's not until John spots a Starbucks stand that Rodney perks up, waxing lyrical about the beauty of the venti cup as he studies the menu with a fervency that would (falsely) suggest he doesn't have it memorized. He settles on a simple cup of dark roast, orders eggnog latte for John with only the tiniest of shudders, and as they hit the escalators to head down to the Terminal One underpass, actually grins.

"I love flying," he says, sipping his coffee.

John's saved from having to answer that by a spectacular snort of laughter from Finn.

The flight to Toronto's delayed, and the noise and hubbub of the terminal blur until John feels as though the only solid, constant things he can trust are his chair, Finn, Rodney, and the cup in his hand. All else dissolves into a careless, chaotic painting – color and noise, layer upon layer. He watches without seeing, remembers once valuing the purpose with which other people are pacing the nubby blue carpet of the waiting area, and muses on how utterly pointless it seems now.

"Hey."

He blinks up at Rodney, roused from his reverie. "Hmm?"

"We're boarding."

And as John stands he realizes he was almost asleep; not only because he feels it dragging at his heels as he walks – though it slows his stride – but because he recognizes Rodney's expression as that of someone who was watching over someone else, careful and attentive. He realizes with drowsy surprise that his life has become incalculably rare; a work of art he couldn't explain if he tried, except in halting words and imperfect metaphors, gesturing as he explains he can sleep in an airport lounge from now on without ever worrying someone will steal his bag.

*****

Suitcases, however, are another matter, and as a vivid pink backpack makes its twentieth circuit of the trans-border baggage claim carousel in Toronto ("THREE!" Finn yells, every time it goes past), John's forced to admit they've lost their luggage.

"This is ridiculous!" Rodney sputters as John tries to find a helpful airport employee. "Our flight was delayed! They had _extra_ time to get our bags from point A to point B! How could they possibly have failed to drive a baggage cart from one terminal to the next in the _three hours_ we were twiddling our thumbs – "

John arches an eyebrow. "Do you really twiddle your thumbs?"

"My grandmother taught me," Rodney says defensively. "Which is so not the point!"

"The point being – "

"The point being that we are stranded, without clothes, without food – "

"Pretty sure there are grocery stores, McDonalds, Tim Hortons, you know . . ."

" – without the comforts of home in any way shape or form – "

John quirks an eyebrow. "I'll try not to feel like chopped liver."

" – while baggage handlers at O'Hare Internationally _fucked up_ Airport – "

Finn jumps up and down. "Swears!"

" – yes, yes, dollar when we get home – are no doubt building shrines to the deities of incompetence and disaster in the middle of the runway using my boxer shorts and your tragically large bottle of shampoo as centerpieces!"

"Hey," says John reasonably. "It's a regular-sized bottle, says so right on the label."

"Again, not the point!"

John rubs his temples and smiles apologetically as an airport staff-person approaches, unaware he's about to be flayed alive by Rodney's tongue. On cue, Rodney draws in an enormous breath, no doubt preparing all his favorite insults, then blinks and manages "bags!" He's suddenly out of steam, and John has just enough time to catch him by the elbow and ease him to the ground before the sugar crash really takes hold. He pulls a granola bar out of his pocket, presses it into Rodney's hand, tells Finn to keep an eye on his dad and then steps to the side to fill out eight sheets of paperwork in triplicate. Rodney drinks one of Finn's juice boxes ("Daddy – wan' grape?") and after John's repeatedly agreed that he doesn't mind a bit if a legion of Canadians search their bags upon arrival, they ruefully gather up their things.

"No underwear," Rodney says dejectedly.

"It's a good look on you," John says, helping him to his feet.

"S'probably in Hawaii, sunning itself."

"Our luggage?" John asks.

"Hmmm," Rodney nods as they push open the doors into the main part of the terminal. "Toasty bags and – "

"About _time_ ," Jeannie interrupts, getting up from a chair in the waiting area.

"Wha – I – " Rodney stutters to a halt and stares, bewildered. "We – we were renting a car? I thought?"

"Yeah, yeah, you still can, I just wanted to see you – hi sweetheart!" she grins, sweeping Finn up into a noisy hug. "How was your flight?"

"I'm three!" Finn offers, fatigue apparent in the dwindling volume of his declaration.

"I know that honey! Did you have a good birthday?"

"Baffa got bruises."

Jeannie shoots John an amused look. "You fell?"

He hitches a shoulder. "A lot," he says dryly, grinning as she sets Finn down.

"Useless," she teases, hugging him.

"Yeah, well – "

"But – but we were getting a car?" Rodney says again, still looking stricken. "It's dark out, and you drove, and the roads – "

Jeannie laughs softly. "Did your sugar crash again, Mer?" she asks sympathetically.

"Hmm? Maybe?"

Jeannie grins and hugs him tight, burying her face against his neck, which only seems to increase Rodney's bewilderment. "I just – " She pulls back, smiling, looking a little teary. "I wanted to tell you."

"Tell me what?" Rodney's eyes grow suddenly huge. "Oh god, is it Madison? Bradley? Oh god, it's not Caleb is it?"

"No, no – " She laughs. "Nothing's wrong, I'm just – I'm pregnant again. Four months!"

Rodney blinks. "And you – wanted to tell me . . . half an hour sooner than you would if we'd driven straight to your house?"

Jeannie laughs blearily. "Yeah."

"And you waited the whole time we were – they lost our bags, and – "

"Yeah."

His face softens. "Oh. Oh well that's . . . That's – " He flushes and grabs for her clumsily, hugging her again. "Congratulations," he mumbles.

Finn looks solemnly up at John. "Wass with Daddy?"

"Sister stuff," John says, smiling, and picks him up to throw him over his shoulder, heedless of his delighted screams.

*****

Things turn decidedly weird for the rest of the evening. John can't quite pin down what's under his skin – he's glad to see everyone, feels the grin on his face like a splash of sunlight when Madison and Bradley fling themselves at him as he comes through the door. He laughs at Caleb's jokes, agrees fervently with the idea there should be coffee, stows Finn's backpack at the foot of the camp-bed in Bradley's room, and takes his own bag and one of Rodney's laptop cases down the hall. Jamming his hands in his pockets (where they've been itching to be for an hour) he stares at the wall, thinking about a shave, and wondering why he wants to _throttle_ Rodney quite as badly as he does.

It's clear, once he rejoins the throng, that whatever mood's infected him has hold of Rodney too. Rodney's pleasant to Caleb – _Caleb_ of all people – but can't fulfill a simple request like 'hey, can you pass the sugar' without glaring daggers in John's direction. No one else seems attuned to it, which makes it all the more surreal. John knows that Jeannie has enviable family radar – he wishes, for example, he could sense as well as she does that Finn's about thirty seconds from melting down and aim a banana in his direction, distracting him from a tantrum completely – but she doesn't seem at all concerned that her brother's plotting John's death by garroting or hanging or guillotine or something equally barbaric. More to the point, she doesn't seem to be aware that John's planning exactly the same thing back, and John eyes the bananas, wondering if he needs one himself.

They eat dinner, Rodney at Jeannie's elbow, John entirely taken up with amusing the kids, Caleb passing juice and wine and the casserole dish when Finn asks for more. There's an easy rhythm to the way they all interact, as if this is the sort of thing they do every day, instead of being a random collision of two families whose orbits swing away from each other more often than toward. Yet beneath it all is that murderous _thing_ John's feeling, like he'd like to punch Rodney's lights out, or at least pour salt down his shirt, and Rodney keeps fingering the pepper pot, which can't be good.

The kids give up the fight against drowsiness one by one, and Caleb and Jeannie turn in not long after, leaving Rodney and John fuming at one another across the kitchen island while they pull clean plates out of the dishwasher and stack them away. They're clearly in the middle of a fight, but John can't remember when it started, and he wonders if O'Hare might be testing nerve agents on unsuspecting travelers. He half thinks about switching on CNN to see if the rest of the world's gone mad, but shuffles down the hall to the spare bedroom instead, takes first turn in the bathroom, and sullenly lies down afterward to stare at the ceiling. There isn't a chance he can sleep until Rodney's done gargling with mouthwash – which, he's decided, is the most annoying personal habit anyone has ever cultivated, ever – but he stubbornly gives it his best try.

Once the lights are out, it's as if all the words he's not saying have no idea which direction to turn, so burrow deeper inside until John's sure he's going to explode. He's about to open his mouth, say something, anything to break the tension (Rogaine's a sure fire way to get tempers rolling) when Rodney shifts and blurts, "Okay – I'm jealous!"

John blinks, stunned. "I – " His brain spins and whirs, finding places to slot the words together, give them meaning and – "Jesus." He didn't see this coming. "I am _too_."

The tension in the room drops fourfold as Rodney sighs. "I didn't even know."

John rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Me either."

"It's just so – _easy_ for them. Oh _hi_ and by the way, I'm _having another child!_ "

John lets out a long breath and all the misdirected anger he's been feeling ebbs away on the ragged edges of the sound. "Fuck."

"Yeah."

There's a long, aching silence. "I'm happy for them," John says, feeling like he should clarify.

"Oh please, like we'd be acting like jerks if it was someone we didn't like or weren't happy for," Rodney points out.

"True." John peers into the unhelpful darkness. "So you – "

"Apparently want another kid, yeah, and hello? No one ever consulted me on that idea; I don't know what part of my head is malfunctioning to make me _want more children_ , but clearly something's gone very wrong in the engineering of this particular part of my normally robust intelligence, because _look at me_ – I barely know what I'm doing with one, and he's usually fairly well behaved, and at least he's a boy, I have some experience with boys, what if – I mean, however we did it, got one, bought, borrowed, stole, whatever it is people do – what if it turned out to be a _girl_? I mean, I know _nothing_ about Anne of Green Gables, for instance, except for what I was forced to learn in grade school because she's a Canadian hero, also very good at math, but really, what would I do with a _girl_."

"You want a girl?"

"Yes. Kinda." Rodney sounds very much like he did the morning John suggested he should drink Folgers.

"I uh – " John blows out a breath. "Yeah."

"You too."

"Yeah." It's a revelation to him, but the feeling's there, strong and certain in the pit of his stomach.

Rodney sighs. "Miller number three."

They're still not touching, so John reaches out to pick up Rodney's hand, to cradle it between both of his and rub his thumb over Rodney's palm. "I wish – "

"What?"

"Wish it were as easy as me just – saying . . ."

"What?'

John rolls his eyes – heaven forbid he try to get a thought out without Rodney interrupting. "Saying let's make a baby."

Rodney's hand goes slack in his, and he lets out a little sigh. "And how am I supposed to – it's completely unfair when you – " And he rolls over, cups John's jaw with one hand and kisses him slow, soft, kind. When he pulls away, he looks suspiciously doe-eyed. "It's a damn good thing I love your cock," he says firmly.

John, surprised, can't help his hiccough of laughter. " _What_?"

"Otherwise I'd be hating it for not being a handy vagina – "

"Oh, I'm the one who's supposed to have a vagina?"

"- instead of hating biology, genetics, childbirth, parenting, heterosexual couples, fertile-Myrtle sisters . . ."

John grins. "That's a lot of hate."

Rodney sighs and lies back down beside him. "I don't really hate any of them, which is distracting, annoying, and all 'round disagreeable. I ought to get some joy out of this – it's been a while since I worked up a good head of steam about – "

"Luggage?" John suggests.

Rodney pauses. "Yes, well, that was – I still think – "

John rolls onto his side, pressing the tip of his nose against Rodney's shoulder – enough to silence him, a sure sign he's tired. "We'll figure it out," he murmurs.

"The luggage?"

"All of it."

Rodney yawns – a great, meandering, jaw-cracking yawn. "Mmmmph," he manages, turning his head toward John, even as his eyes are closing. "But can't you just see a li'l girl with your smile?" The question's rhetorical, and hangs in the air over the bed as they finally drift off to sleep.

*****

By the time John makes it to the kitchen next morning, rubbing one eye and homing in on the coffeepot, Jeannie's the only one around. She smiles at him indulgently. "They're out buying a tree."

"Mmmph," John replies intelligently, sloshing coffee into a mug and gulping for several quiet moments.

Jeannie leans a hip against the counter and watches him. "Talked to Mer a bit this morning."

"Mmm?" John refills his cup and prepares to be more attentive.

"He was up early." She loops a dish towel through the handle of one of the low cabinets. "Or – probably more accurate to say he didn't sleep so well."

"He does that," John says, tilting his head from side to side, stretching out the muscles in his neck and shoulders. "Can't always shut off that big ole brain."

"I think it was his big ole heart that was the trouble."

John raises an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"He told me. About – " she gestures " – your conversation last night."

"Oh." John flushes, feeling bad. "We're not – I mean you get that we – "

"I get it," Jeannie smiles, folding her arms. "I do. And I know you're happy for me and Caleb." She tilts her head. "I'm sorry it's not – that you can't just . . . " She laughs softly and ducks her head. "I think about Bradley and how we just knew one day that we wanted him. Him or her, whomever he'd turn out to be, and how watching Maddie grow up just – "

John looks into his coffee cup, still uncomfortable. It feels like an awful private thing to be talking about so openly. "Yeah."

Jeannie lays a hand on his arm. "Being a dad's got nothing to do with – sperm and eggs and – " She pulls a face. "All of that. You know that."

"Oh, it has a little something to do with that," John says dryly.

"So go jerk off into a cup if that's what matters to you," she says evenly, and grins when he splutters coffee down his front. "Seriously. I'm just sayin' – if you really want another kid, you can have one."

John gives up on trying to swat the stains from his t-shirt, and stares at them balefully, as though they'll cave under his glare. "I don't know that we – " He blows out a breath.

"What?"

"I don't know if it's what we want or – just somethin' we're – "

"Something that's different. For you."

"Yeah. Fuck, I don't know," John says. "Shit, Jeannie, it's like – " He looks for a clock. "10.15," he offers, pointing at the digital display on the microwave. "S'early."

She smirks. "Weakling."

"Yeah, whatever," he yawns, sliding onto a stool and propping his head up on one hand. He blinks at her twice. "He alright?"

"Yeah. You know how he is. He had a notebook half full of cost analysis and who-knows-what projections when I got up. Wouldn't let me see 'em, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was factoring total lifetime donut intake into some health and well-being diagnostic. Trying to figure out kids through the square root of 'holy fuck, someone give me an equation that'll make this make sense.'" She grins.

John smiles affectionately. "That's my boyfriend," he says.

She snorts. "I was gonna make waffles," she says. "You want some?"

"Waffles," John repeats dreamily.

"I'll take that as a yes," she laughs, and refills his coffee cup before she pulls flour out of one of the cabinets.

*****

The hordes bring home a tree within the hour, and quickly discover it's too big to get through the front door of the house. John watches, amused, as Caleb and Rodney drag it back into the yard and debate height versus girth, where to make a cut in the trunk, and – alarmingly – whether it's worth taking out a window to get the tree inside. Finn spends the time productively shedding as many layers of clothing as he can – hat, gloves, scarf, jacket, sweater, boots – before running over to hug John's leg.

"We finds the best tree!" he says, giddy.

"Sure looks like it," John smiles, crouching down to hug him, warming as Finn transfers his hold from leg to neck, small arms clinging tight. "Did you have fun?"

"There was horses and Santa," Finn says, pulling back and bouncing on his toes. "Annnnn' jingle bells and Daddy falled down in the snow annnnn' we had hot chocolate!"

"Was Daddy okay?" John asks.

"He made swears."

"Bad Daddy."

"Four dollars!"

John chuckles. "Good job, puddlejumper. You want some juice?"

"Juice!"

Madison and Bradley have already wheedled cookies from Jeannie, and she passes one to Finn as he runs pell-mell into the kitchen. John pours more coffee – it feels like the sort of day that's going to require as much caffeine as possible, a hunch that plays out within half an hour as Rodney and Caleb manhandle the tree into the family room, and Rodney starts trying to calculate the proper angle at which to set the thing in its stand to ensure it's verifiably vertical.

"Mer?"

"Not now, Jeannie."

"Mer, it looks straight to me."

"Yes, yes, and we all remember exactly how well you did at geometry," Rodney says, peering out from beneath the lower branches.

Jeannie rolls her eyes. "You are possessed."

"I'm merely trying to make sure the tree doesn't _collapse_ in the middle of the night, scattering ornaments to the four corners . . ."

"It's fine."

"If I don't correct for the slight curvature of the trunk – "

"Rodney?" John interrupts.

"Hmm?"

"She made snickerdoodles."

Rodney slides out from under the tree, mouth in a tiny 'O'. "Snickerdoodles?"

"And I made a fresh pot of coffee."

"Coffee – " Rodney climbs to his feet, happily distracted by the idea of French roast. "There's coffee?"

John winks at Jeannie as they pass.

The kids decorate the tree as high as they can reach, too impatient to wait for Caleb to string the lights, and when Jeannie refuses to let them stand on chairs and decorate higher, they adorn each other with cast-off garland and as much glitter as they can work off the ornaments with their fingers. The top half of the tree becomes the de facto work zone of adults – ironically, it turns out, since almost all the ornaments that are left were made by childish hands. Rodney fishes out a rocket ship, styled out of macaroni and spray-painted silver, offering a triumphant "ha!"

"Yours?" John guesses.

"Yes! Look at the tiny thruster engines," Rodney says, pointing to pieces of macaroni that are shorter than the others. "Even at a tender age I was improving upon the substandard engineering of the American space program."

"With macaroni."

"Well I hardly had access to heat-resistant tile now, did I?" Rodney says dryly.

"Okay," John nods solemnly, and hangs up a fairy princess with vampire teeth that Jeannie explains was the earliest inkling of her punk rock phase.

"See," she says, pointing to a Doc Marten boot that pokes out from beneath the fairy princess's tulle skirt. "She's a rebel."

Rodney rolls his eyes. "I'm so sure. Wasn't that the year you asked for the lookaround Velvet doll with the braidable hair?"

Jeannie narrows her eyes. "One – why would you even remember that, and two – yeah, and after I braided her hair I used her to kick your G.I. Joe's ass."

"You had a G.I. Joe?" John asks, rubbing his nose, suspicious it's beglittered after too close an encounter with a dried-bean-and-rotini Sputnik.

"I had _several_ ," said Rodney. "I had the G.I Joe Adventure Team, thank you very much."

"He killed them," Jeannie offers.

"I did not!"

"You built a rocket ship out of a toilet roll middle, two boxes of matches, and a contraption that mostly seemed woven out of rubber bands, and you launched them into next door's pond! They drowned!"

"I don't know that they could drown, exactly," John offers. "What with being _dolls_."

Rodney looks a little pained. "They – were never really the same afterwards."

John pats his shoulder before he slings what appears to be a Hawaiian dancer, molded out of pipe-cleaners, near the top of the tree. "Hey," he says. "I'll do my Kung-Fu grip for you later, and you can make my eyes move, and it'll just be like old times."

Jeannie snorts and Rodney flushes and Caleb asks if anyone wants chamomile tea, and it's a testimony to how derailed Rodney's brain is that he says yes.

The next few days are a blur. There's last minute Christmas shopping to be done and, humiliatingly, John gets completely lost at the Eaton Center. After walking one complete circuit of the mall, he's forced to waylay a very nice employee and ask for Rodney to be paged over the PA system. As he treks to the Customer Service Center on level two, he reflects on the fact that he once survived the deserts of Afghanistan, and this debacle can only mean he's getting soft in his middle age. Moments later, he's all but mowed down by a gaggle of shrieking women carrying more than the average serviceman's body weight in shopping bags, and reckons he's being hard on himself – at least in Afghanistan no one had to reckon with the enemy being armed with false nails and a fierce desire to buy the last moose sweatshirt for $9.99, or think about the right direction to head in while someone sang about Grandma getting knocked over by a reindeer.

"Are you okay?" Rodney asks once he arrives, Finn in his arms.

"Fine," John says, shuffling his feet. "I got distracted by the bras at that – place."

"Bras?" Rodney asks, bewildered.

"They were shiny," John explains.

"Well. Yes," Rodney says in a tone of voice that says he doesn't understand at all. "Food, maybe?"

"Food'd be good," John grins, and squeezes the back of Rodney's neck, he's so damn glad to see him.

"Seriously," Rodney asks as they turn in the direction of the food court. "How did you survive Afghanistan?"

"Shut up," John drawls, and wrinkles his nose at Finn, who wrinkles his own right back.

Once the shopping's done, there are gifts to wrap, and John spends an inordinate number of nights sprawled on the living room floor, boxes of Legos between his knees, soft toys at his elbow, tongue between his teeth as he tapes down lurid Disney wrapping paper and smacks pre-tied bows on boxes. Rodney alternates between using a slide rule as a guide for cutting paper, and getting so frustrated he bundles gifts up in twice as much paper as they need, fastening down rebellious corners with so much tape it'll be a wonder if anyone can open anything. Jeannie solves the thorny problem of wrapping by putting all her gifts in bags and stuffing the top with tissue paper, which Rodney ridicules as being amateurish and antithetical to the spirit of the season. Since this only earns him a clip to the ear, he eventually suffers in silence, but mutters about tape in his sleep, and twice grabs John hard at 3am and whispers "ribbon! I need ribbon!" until John spoons him quiet and urges him to sleep by drowsily nosing at the back of his neck.

Come Thursday, they attend the neighborhood carol party in the local park, wrapped up in scarves and newly-knitted Jeannie-hats. Finn spends most of the time digging in the snow with his mittened hands, trying to see if he can "get to China, Baffa!" Bradley sneaks off to eat all the marshmallows that were meant for the cocoa someone brought in enormous thermoses, and Rodney knows the tenor harmony to 'O Come All Ye Faithful,' which John chalks up as the most inappropriate thing he's ever found hot. Jeannie and Caleb huddle around a candle, giggling like they're teenagers and occasionally singing along, and John tries very hard not to work out which of them has a voice like a donkey. The whole thing ends with a rousing chorus of 'Jingle Bells,' during which John's persuaded by his son's big, pleading eyes to act as a reindeer and dash through the snow with one Finn McKay clinging to his back and shrieking like a heathen. Rodney complains all the way home that he doesn't have any feeling in his extremities – and if John has some creative thoughts about how to thaw him out, he saves them until everyone else has gone to bed and he has Rodney alone, naked and trembling beneath the covers, clutching at John's shoulders and saying his name in a broken, desperate voice that shoots straight to the base of John's spine and warms him from the inside out.

There are fireworks at Nathan Philips Square on Saturday, and a skating party on Sunday. John resolutely refuses to get on the ice, preferring to watch from the sidelines and drink a hot cup of coffee with his feet planted on solid ground, but he has fun enough watching Rodney coach Finn and Finn laugh at Rodney when the latter trips and wipes out in a showy display of karma. They shop at the grocery store, take the kids to the movies, baby-sit while Caleb and Jeannie have a date, and sleep in more mornings than they don't. Christmas dawns loud and chaotic at the behest of three excited kids, and when Rodney kisses him fully awake, morning breath and all, John feels so damn happy he has to hide his head under the pillow and order Meredith to quit being a pain in the ass and make him some coffee if he wants him to get out of bed. Rodney laughs softly and slides out from underneath the covers, humming O Come All Ye Faithful, which really doesn't help John out at all.

It's one of the best Christmases John can remember, notwithstanding the fight Rodney and Caleb get into over the best cinematic adaptation of _A Christmas Carol_ , or the meltdown Finn has when Bradley tries to play with his fire truck, or Madison accidentally locking herself in the bathroom and Jeannie slicing open the pad of her thumb with a screwdriver as she tries to get her out. There are better things to remember – the way Rodney lies belly-down on the living room carpet to play trains with the kids; the look on Caleb's face when he realizes he's just unwrapped a first edition of _The Great Gatsby_ ; the image of Finn and Madison burrowed down in an armchair with Finn's new picture book; the happy little huff of pleasure Jeannie gives when she realizes exactly how many spa days Rodney bought for her; the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg wafting from the kitchen; the way Rodney cleans his plate of every last scrap of tofurkey; the rustle of chocolate wrappers when everyone's sworn they can't eat another thing; the snow that falls that evening. As he stands at the sink, washing the day's dishes, John smiles at the low hum of voices from the living room, at the footsteps in the snow from where Jeannie took the kids outside to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Rodney brushes past him to stow the last remnants of dessert in the fridge and grazes a knuckle over the small of John's back, across the patch of skin where his t-shirt's ridden high and his jeans have ridden low. John inhales sharply at the shiver of pleasure that races up his spine.

Rodney hooks his chin over John's shoulder. "Happy Christmas," he murmurs.

"Yeah," John smiles, and they stand still together, content and silent.

*****

Winter's turned muddy and brown by the time they get back to Iowa, wet and cloudy and just a shade too warm for snow. It makes the world drab and ugly, the roads full of new potholes from December's frost, and John finds himself missing the soft twinkle of Christmas lights and the softening touch of snow on the landscape. Everything gets covered in mud – the truck, Rodney's car, everyone's boots, the kitchen floor and, mysteriously, the wall in Finn's bedroom. They slip back into routines, into the everyday tangle of daycare and plumbing fixes and lab work and emails to Colorado, and it's a deep, soul-warming relief when the next blizzard rolls in and they can hunker down for two close-packed days, playing card games and making animals out of play-doh, fixing pizza and having competitions as to who can yell 'SASQUATCH' the loudest.

January melts into a bitter February; February into the bleak plains of March. Laura comes down with stomach flu on the 12th, so John takes Finn along on all his odd-jobs, wrestling his toolbox in and out of the trunk of Rodney's car and trying not to think too hard about the myriad ways Rodney could be screwing up his truck. Finn's so well behaved John presses a hand to his forehead at the Bentens' place, checking for a temperature that would explain his goodwill, but it seems perhaps he's just fascinated by power tools and fresh-sawn wood, because he sits and watches and asks oddly phrased questions and beams when Mrs Abernath offers him a cookie, freshly-baked.

They stop in at the Brennemans' for a visit – Finn wants to see Martha, check she's doing okay, tucked away in the barn for the winter, and John wants to be sure both Brennemans are weathering the cold. Mr. Brenneman's limping, leaning on a cane when he answers the door, and John's struck by how frail he's beginning to look.

"Save your pity," Mr. Brenneman scoffs.

"I – "

"Arthritis. Nothing to be done about it."

"Nothing that a vacation in Florida wouldn't cure," Mrs. Brenneman offers cheerfully, filling the coffeepot with water.

"Oh quit it, Maggie," Mr. Brenneman sighs, ruffling Finn's hair as Finn hugs his leg. "I'm not spending my winters among bingo-playing golfers, and that's the goshdarn end of it."

Maggie Brenneman smiles, amused, and directs the conversation in more pleasant directions, rubbing Jim's arm as she goes to fetch squares of fruitcake from the pantry, and listening with rapt attention to Finn's recitation of everything exciting that happened in Toronto. John waits until Jim's settled, amiably amused by Finn's rambling stories, then ducks out the side door and hauls in wood from the wood pile, stacking it neatly by the fireplace in the dining room and the pot-bellied stove in the den.

"Interfering young know-it-all," Jim says without rancor when John comes back.

John looks as innocent as he knows how. "Hey, just freeing up some time for you to do more sky-diving," he says, slipping onto a kitchen stool and accepting a cup of coffee from Maggie.

Jim snorts. "Yep. Right after I navigate a raft down the Mississippi," he drawls, and pokes John with his cane.

The visit's nice, the kitchen snug, and Finn keeps everyone entertained with his thoughts on puppies, Batman, and why snow should be orange. Maggie watches him closely, and when he's done with his juice, beckons him with one finger. "I have something you should see, young man," she stage-whispers.

Finn's eyes grow wide. "Is it a monster?"

Maggie keeps a straight face. "Not today. Something better."

"Better'n a monster?" Finn says, as if such a thing could scarce be true.

"Hat back on," Maggie directs, crossing the kitchen and putting on her own coat. "Scarf, boots, the whole thing. And you should come with," she says to John, who obeys as diligently as his son.

They tramp across the snowy yard and into the outbuilding that's stationed between the garage and the barn. It's warm inside, and they're greeted by the gentle babble of clucking chickens, protesting the draft they've let in through the open door.

"Here you go," Maggie says, lifting Finn up so he can look into a cardboard box that's stationed directly beneath a bare bulb.

"Chicks!" Finn says, clapping his hands together in excitement. "Baffa they's chicks!"

John leans in and smiles at the fuzzy bundles of feathers jostling each other in the base of the box. "Cute," he says.

"Canna I have one!?" Finn asks Mrs. Brenneman in awed tones.

"Finn – " John warns in a low voice.

Maggie smiles at him. "I figured maybe it was time he learned a bit about livestock," she said. "Even if it is just chickens."

John scratches the back of his neck. "I don't know that we have a place to keep 'em," he winces.

"All they need's a box and a light bulb for a while," she chides. "You looked after chickens those summers when you were a kid, don't try and fool me, John Sheppard."

John sighs. "Box and a bulb for how long?"

"I'll write it all out for you. He should take more than one, mind. Company."

Finn looks up at John with big, blue eyes. John curses Rodney's genes.

"Baffaaaaa?" Finn asks, pleading.

John rolls his eyes, imagining the conversation this is going to necessitate when they get back home. "Two," he says sternly. "No more than two."

Finn grins and squeaks and turns his attention back to the box. "That one!" he crows, pointing at a pale, skinny little chick. He thinks for a long time before picking another. "An' that one!" he offers at last, picking out a brown-flecked bird.

Maggie sets Finn down and gently scoops out each bird, setting them in a smaller shoe box. "You gonna pick names?" she asks, letting Finn peer inside.

Finn sucks thoughtfully on his finger. "Fruitcake," he says, pointing at the pale chick. "An' Baby Jesus."

"Baby Jesus?" John asks, choking.

"Fruitcake and Baby Jesus!" Finn says insistently.

John knows when he's beat.

Mrs. Brenneman sets them up with everything they'll need – instructions, feed, the proper-watt bulb – and John decides it's probably a good idea to head back home. Finn cradles the chick-box on his lap as they drive back to the farm, chattering merrily the whole way about chickens and eggs and roosters and Easter bunnies, while John desperately tries to imagine how he's going to explain the chicken invasion to Rodney. They reach home before he has an answer, and it strikes him as sod's law that the truck's already parked in the driveway – that Rodney's decided to take an early day from the labs and work at home, necessitating that explanations be offered a lot sooner rather than later. John wonders if there's any research out there on chickens being soothing creatures, likely to aid in higher brain function and relaxation among humans, but concedes as he helps Finn get out of the car that there probably isn't time to google chicken-therapy before Rodney hears the chirping.

"We're home," he calls as he opens the kitchen door, letting Finn tumble inside. There's no answer, so he sets the box on the kitchen counter. "Wait for me," he counsels Finn, who's struggling with his scarf – and hopefully that'll keep him occupied for the minute or two he needs to talk to Rodney. "Rodney?" he calls, weaving into the living room and opening the study door.

"What the fuck!" Rodney yelps, surprised, and drops a box full of junk all over the floor.

"Shit," John says. This is not how he meant things to begin. "Sorry." He crouches in order to help pick everything up.

"Don't touch that!"

But John already has his fingers curled around a six–sided lump of something that's not quite plastic, not quite metal, and the whole thing's glowing purple in his hand. "Oops?" he says, looking at Rodney, who's staring right back.

"Jesus, Einstein and Newton," Rodney manages, sitting heavily in his chair, face an unnatural shade of gray, breaking into a sweat. "You – you . . . "

"Did I break it?" John asks, wincing. "God I'm sorry, I didn't – "

"You have the – "

John waits nervously. "The . . . " he prompts.

Rodney looks up at him. "Oh god, I'm gonna puke," he mumbles, and shoves his head between his knees.

"Okay, let's not do that," John says, settling a hand on the back of Rodney's neck, confused. "Deep breaths, buddy."

Rodney whimpers.

"And then maybe you can tell me what – what I have exactly? I mean, I take it you mean something other than – " He looks at the thing in his hand. "The lumpy thing."

Rodney keens.

"Rodney."

Rodney says something bumbling and indistinct.

" _Rodney_."

With a burst of frenetic energy, Rodney stands up and starts to pace, waving his hands and massaging his temples and making small huffing noises and occasionally emitting a squeak.

John watches, getting more and more worried by the second. "Don't make me call you Meredith," he warns.

"I can't tell you," Rodney blurts. "I can't tell you but this is – oh god, this is . . . and you've been _in my bed_ all this time and I – oh god, oh god you've touched me with hands that – oh that shouldn't be hot, that really shouldn't be hot, but that's so hot." And he grabs John and kisses him hard – wet, messy, gasping for breath, fingers curling into John's hair.

John reels for a second – then figures at least this way he knows why Rodney's making noises and kisses him back, sucking on his bottom lip as Rodney slides broad hands into the back pockets of his jeans, pulling him closer.

"You're – I have to call Colorado now," Rodney whispers raggedly, in between placing stinging bites along the line of John's jaw.

"You're making no sense," John gasps as Rodney switches tactics and goes for his throat.

"Yeah, I know. It's so great," Rodney mouths against his collarbone. "Gimme ten minutes." He pulls back as if it's physically painful to him.

John stares at him, breathing hard. "Are you – going insane?" he asks.

"Very probably," Rodney nods. "I have to call NORAD."

"Because of the lumpy thing?"

Rodney nods.

John frowns. "Am I in trouble?"

"Oh well – that's . . . debatable, but not really in the sense you mean. I mean – it's good trouble if it turns out to be trouble; it's the kind of trouble that you'll really like, and not in that – it doesn't involve me tying you up or anything, not like that, I just mean – " He runs out of breath.

John watches him helplessly. "Okay," he manages. "I am officially living with a crazy person." And he shuffles out of the study, closing the door to lean back against it, heart still beating frantically in his chest.

"Fruitcake and Baby Jesus need a house," Finn says with determination, appearing in front of him.

"Fruitcake and Baby Jesus," John nods, and figures it's a bad commentary on his day that those names are no longer the weirdest thing about it.

*****

Rodney's a lot longer than ten minutes – it's after eleven before he climbs the stairs to the bedroom. John's waiting for him, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor and trying not to freak out. Something is, his rigorously trained Air Force instincts tell him, up ('up' being the technical term for the seething nausea that's been churning in his stomach since Rodney started yelling and calling people jackasses at about 9pm, and the headache that started after ten, when Rodney rocketed out of the study, shoved a football sized piece of junk in his hands, and spat "yes!" into the phone when the whole thing lit up green).

"Hi," Rodney says, and he looks exhausted, but there's a gentle wistfulness on his face. He doesn't look angry or upset or frustrated – in fact he looks so benevolent John wonders if making things light up means he's dying and Rodney's about to deliver the news.

"Um. Yeah," John says. "So."

"So," Rodney says, and sits down beside him, a careful measure of distance between them that makes John feel angry and cold. "It's like this – "

And in moments, John's world expands to encompass the soft shades of green and blue that paint his hands with the colors of another galaxy, staining the whorls of his fingertips with the biology of loss, marking the curve of his palm as the space between then and now. In his blood tumble keys, thoughts and impulses to press into a universe of locks, to push open doors grown rusty and tired.

(Through the bedroom window he can see the moon, familiar with its crooked smile, so close he wonders if he might reach out and touch it, cup its pale, sweet light between his fisted fingers and feel the stars sing to kin beyond their sight).

*****

It's cold when John stumbles outside, the past-midnight sky a limitless black, punctuated by the pinpricks of light and a moon that's shifted, spilling silver from a different angle than before. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans – he's out without scarf or gloves, and his jacket's scant protection against the wind, but after everything Rodney's laid out before him, he needs to feel the farm solid beneath his boots, feel rooted in a corner of the world that reaches toward him, tells him this is home.

He stares at the stars, trying to take in every one of Rodney's words, knit them together into a meaning that can reflect the tentative hope he's seen in Rodney's face, into a new sense of belonging that stretches for miles beyond corn stubble and fields sown heavy with soy beans. There's a faint glow from Finn's bedroom window – the nightlight that keeps his son's fears at bay – and John thinks of Christmas and ice rinks and Colorado, the scope of his family and the gift in his blood. It doesn't help. His confusion only multiplies.

With the unasked questions of two galaxies buzzing beneath his skin, John makes a slow circuit of the farm. The grass is frost-sharp beneath his boots, and the barn door rough and solid against his hand. Everything communicates a familiar sense of home – Earth, he supposes, looking out over the gentle roll of the fields he rents out – and yet it's only half the story of why there's beauty in this place. Above the fences he's nailed together more than once, the pasture that'll bend and sway beneath the wind in July, the road that twists off into the distance, stretches a canopy of stars to reflect back his belonging. "I guess I have to find out, don't I?" John asks no one in particular, and closes his eyes, turns his face up to the wash of moonlight that's fragile in his path.

Once he closes the kitchen door behind him, he's so cold he can scarcely remember to shiver. He climbs the stairs, still in his jacket; looks in on Finn and pads back to his own room; swaps jeans for pajama pants that slide low on his hips. Rodney's almost asleep – mumbles as John spoons up behind him, winces at the cold of John's hands.

"Y'freezing," he whispers, clumsily clasping John's right hand between both of his and rubbing it warm.

John noses his shoulder, keeps his silence for a moment, then clears his throat. "Book us a flight," he manages, and it takes more courage than he'd planned on needing.

"Hmmm?'

"To Colorado. Book us a flight. We'll go for a week. Take a look."

Rodney stills his hands, and the only sound between them is the inhale and exhale of their breathing. "You're sure?" he says at last.

John wets his lips. "Almost," he confesses in an uncertain, whispered laugh, and Rodney rolls over, kisses him with a smile.

"This is – ," he offers and there's no disguising the Christmas-morning glee in his voice.

"Am I your very favorite science experiment ever?" John asks dryly.

Rodney huffs his derision. "You are not a science experiment. Okay, well, maybe a little. But – "

John kisses him – teasing apart his lips, licking sweetly, catching the half-breath Rodney surrenders, molding closer. "This is fucked up, you know," he murmurs. "Other planets and aliens and shit."

Rodney smiles. "But _cool_."

John laughs softly. "Very cool."

"Possibly even very, _very_ cool."

John snorts. "Shut up."

"You think it's cool."

"I said as much!"

"You think it's really cool."

"Jesus, you can't let a thing go . . ."

Rodney smiles drowsily, pleased and smug. "No." His eyes begin to close.

"Hey." John pokes him restlessly.

"Hmmmm?"

A pause. "It'll work out. Right?"

Rodney drags his eyes open. "Go to sleep," he murmurs with something like authority, and drags John in closer, tangling their limbs and letting his breathing slow until John can't help but be lulled by the prosaic comfort of body heat and a soft-beating heart, anchored in place by a hand that summons light to shimmer beneath his skin.


End file.
